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This story has been haunting us all week.
Last week, Marie Campbell instructed her six-year-old son to go to the "lost children" tent at the Taste of Chicago. According to the Trib, the little boy wandered around the Taste until he was spotted by police—by the festival's end that day, Campbell never returned. This weekend, the 29-year-old turned herself in, and on Sunday authorities charged her with one count of felony child abandonment.
What really got us when we first heard about this, as it does with so many other cases of its nature, is the thought of this obviously desperate mother knowingly leaving her little kid to fend for himself amongst all of this merriment. There doesn't seem to be any indication as to how long he was actually walking around on his own, but it kills us to think about the time between Campbell leaving her kid and when authorities picked him up - with the history of domestic problems Campbell has had in regards to her son, Chicagoist wonders if this little guy knew something was amiss and how frightened he may have been.
Even worse, over the weekend the Trib reported that Campbell has on at least one occasion tried to reach out for help - going so far as to lock herself in a closet to keep from harming him and alerting child welfare authorities - but nothing seemed to stick. The Sun-Times says today that Campbell could no longer deal with her son's learning disability so she abandoned him at the Taste. Chicagoist isn't saying we agree with anyone leaving their kid in potentially dangerous situations, but we can't exactly get behind the idea that this woman is the devil incarnate, either.
Sunday's newspaper reports seemed to indicate that authorities were feeling pretty similarly. Campbell is scheduled to appear in court today.
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she sounds mentally ill. as horrible a thing as she did, i feel for her.
With all this issues of Gay marriage these days and people fighting for who can and can't marry, has anyone ever looked at the issue of who can and can't have children? Seriously. They put regulations on every aspect of human stupidity (gun license, drivers license, smoking age, drinking age), why can't they regulate the level of responsibility when it comes to rearing a child. Is anyone going to feel sorry for this child when he commits his first felony? And a bigger shame on the DCFS. Name one success story that has come out of their interventions.
In college I worked at an amusement park in Pittsburgh in the Guest Services department. Very often (and by that I mean several times a week) parents would ditch their kids at the park (often as young as 7 or 8) and leave them in the custody of our Guest Services department for hours and hours. Sometimes up to 8 or 9 hours, while the parents were off enjoying the park or even left to go do God knows what. When they did come to pick them up they would yell at the kid for "getting lost" even though the kid had been there for 8 hours - they parent(s) knew where to find them. On more than one occasion they parents never returned and the kid had to be turned over to the custody of the city police. Very sad and very frequent.
I bet this boy grows up to be Mayor, or maybe even something better like County Board President!
I say the kid grows up to be Mayor, or maybe even something better like County Board President!
obviously the woman is mentally ill and as horrible as leaving the kid was, she seems to ahve a problem that needs some sort of treatment. i think the focus should be on DCFS, which was familiar with her and her kid [does she have others?] but they seem to really have done nothing to help either. shame on them.
I say the kid grows up to be Mayor, or maybe even something better like County Board President!